Seuss

I learned today that I do in fact have boundaries:  I absolutely refuse to discuss the “50 Shades of Grey” series with my mother-in-law.  Seriously.  I will not budge.  Refuse!  It’s just…

….

But even with that one topic on my taboo list, I survived a full day in a hospital room with my in-laws completely unscathed.  Not that I expected anything different, it’s just, you know, in eight years, I’ve never spent that much time with them, especially without my husband.  We watched Crocodile Hunter, Hillbilly Handfishing or some such, Judge Joe Brown, and many many mob/Jesse James/secret tunnel documentaries.  Despite the tension over the circumstances and the hours and hours and hours (did I mention it was HOURS?) of waiting, it was an easy, light, good day of nice conversation and comfortable silences.

My father-in-law is fine.  The cath went better than expected.  My mother-in-law is tired.  It was still a stressful day with a lot of waiting.  My ass is done.  I sat in a transport chair all day.  It could have been worse.  It could have been so much worse.  A clear cath in his case is beyond a blessing – it’s darn close to being a miracle.

Nobody should have to sit in a hospital with a loved one alone, and I’m glad I could be there for them, even if it was just to sit on my tail and play on my iPad all day.

Besides, it gave me a chance to rest my singing voice up for the 4-hour return-homeathon Broadway soundtrack screechfest en la mañana.  I am READY!

I’m sitting in a room with a flowery chandelier, surrounded by legos and preschool art, covered by sheets bearing cars and airplanes.  These are not my usual digs.

My father-in-law is ill, which is sadly not anything new.  But my mother-in-law called this morning to tell me the latest, and my husband is in crucial business meetings he cannot leave, and my gut said “Go. You need to be there.”  So I loaded up the truck and I moved to Beverly.  Which means, really, that I threw every cable and charger and cord I could find, threw them in a bag, grabbed some clean undies, situated my daughter with my mother, and embarked on the 4 hour drive to Atlanta all by my lonesome.

Freedom in a car with no child and no one to complain about the volume of the radio and no “OMG, I can’t believe you’re listening to THAT, change the channel already” is a dangerous thing.  I spent half the trip listening to a blend of news about the death penalty – both for gross negligence in the management of sexual misconduct and for a potentially drugged-acting aspiring neuroscientist who went on a murderous rampage that no superhero could stop.

The other half of the trip, I cranked that dial (Remember when radios actually had DIALS, kids?  No?  Well, get off my lawn!) to the Broadway station.  It was a treat for the other drivers on the road, I’m sure.  I did only just manage to stay between the line of my own lane as I shoulder danced.  At one point, a car almost pulled over to let my sirened vehicle through, only I don’t have a siren.  (No one to complain about the volume while I listened to showtunes, remember?  Get it?)

I Mamed it up, Rented it out, and hit a note from Phantom that about made my nose bleed, and I am SO not kidding.  Seriously.

Seriously?

Seriously.

I should not be left to drive unattended for four hours.  I make an absolute fool of myself and arrive at my destination completely hoarse and covered in my own blood and tears.  (What?  You’ve never cried at a showtune?  You’re heart, it is DEAD.)

For now, I’m about to curl up ensconced in this little boy room some of my husband’s friends have so generously let me use, and see if I can sleep  (little boys have cooties, donchaknow).  Hopefully, tomorrow will prove that this trip was pointless – that I was simply overreacting in my daughter-in-law-ly duties and offering comfort in a situation where everything was fine and we can all go home and sleep in our own beds.  Which means that maybe even tomorrow evening, there’s another 4-hour drive all by my lonesome ahead.

Praise the Lord and pass the earplugs!

There is perhaps nothing more depressing than going back through my entires from the last year and a half.  Well, for one, there were only 37 of them.  For another, there were next to no comments, so I just manually (manually being cut and past and reset dates by hand) migrated the lot of them from ExpressionEngine to WordPress.

But the most depressing of all?  How hopeful I have been, and how, reading between the blog entries and listening in the months’ long silences, I realize have let myself down.

I’ve done a damn fine job of documenting my positives.  The good days are all there.  But what are missing are the bad days.  And what is glaring is how many days are missing.  MONTHS of days.

There’s a major shift going on right now.  My own personal tectonic plates are moving around, bumping and grinding and eroding and creating rivers and mountains.  I’m learning that my own landscape is pretty spectacular on its own, but it’s taking a while to climb high enough to be able to admire the view.

Does that make ANY sense?

I’ve migrated the archives.  I’ll at some point probably republish a very few entries from them here, in this new space.  There’s no need in sharing with you how many times I’ve promised myself that this time, this will still – “this” being everything from blogging to C25K to going gluten-free (not abandoned, but put on hold).

It has, however, taught me something.  That is, the only way I’m going to follow through – with this or with anything – is to be daring.  I have to step out of my box, try something new, take a deep breath, and just jump in with both feet.

I have to be {long exaggerated gasp} … {pause for dramatic effect} … authentic.

Whaddaconcept.